In this final episode of season 6, we speak with Jamie Leather, Director of the Transport Sector of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). What strategies need to be adopted to decarbonize transport in the region? What role will electric vehicles play in the transition towards sustainable and low carbon transport? How can Asia achieve a just transition in the transport sector? And what approaches to and what approaches to adaptation can be taken to deal with the natural disasters that currently inflict over 30 billion annual losses to the region?
Below is an excerpt of the conversation edited for length and clarity
Holger Dalkmann
So let’s move on to some of the key challenges which we already see partially mentioned. So the region’s cities suffer from high air pollution levels. At the same time, we’ve seen a trend towards rapid motorization. Motor vehicle fleets are already doubling every 5 to 7 years.
And this, of course, means we’re going to see more congestion and more air pollution. So what do you think are the solutions to address that? So in other words, what role can public transport play? Is there a space or so for walking and cycling? So what’s your take on that?
Jamie Leather
A very good question. I hope we don’t see more congestion and worsening air quality or global emissions, but it does require a concerted effort to address accessibility, mobility and inclusive and equitable access and mobility, and while every city is different. So you’ve got to look at localising what solutions are most relevant given the densities, given the size of cities and the geographical or the temporal terrain of those cities, what is possible?
But one sort of a rule of thumb, if there is such a thing, what is the share between private mobility and public transport slash non-motorised transport, So public transport, cycling, walking. That split, if you could have a sustainable urban transport system, would really be about 70%, 30%. So 70% of trips should be made by public transport or walking or cycling on the non-motorized side and 30% by private modes of transport.
In this part of the world, that’s a lot of motorbikes, but also private cars as well. And some data. The most sustainable, most advanced or the better operating urban transport systems. Singapore, which is different, is the city state, but Seoul, Tokyo, we’re looking now at Beijing and Shanghai coming there. They were around that 70-30 split, which would be classified as sustainable. The flipside is many of the say developing countries, poor cities in South Asia, operate at a similar split, 7030.
But that’s not so much by choice. And they sort of come to your question on the public transport. It’s more that they don’t yet have that private vehicle in the household. They’re striving to get that because it’s a sign of growth and a sign of you’ve got the income and therefore you buy a motorbike and then you move on to the other part.
That’s 70% in many of the developing cities because they’re captive public transport users or they have to walk because they don’t have the choice made available to them. But what is critical is making sure that while people are aspiring to get a motorbike or a private car, we make sure that the public transport or the walkability of the city or have you can cycle around that city is as attractive, if not more so, than the use of that private vehicle.
How do we make sure that, yes, they can buy a vehicle, but hopefully on the daily commute to and from work or school, they shouldn’t be using that. They should be using much more sustainable forms of urban mobility.
Another point I just want to raise is that Asian cities are quite different from many of those in the developed part of the world, particularly Europe and North America, in sheer population size or the density in those cities.
So the space available for activities or transport networks is significantly less because of the densities and the population sizes. Now, given that mass transit systems, the commuter rails, the metro systems, the subway systems are absolutely essential if you’re looking at the large cities, 5 million and up and even some of the smaller cities, 1 to 5 million or half a million, 2 to 5 million, that mass transit system must be the skeleton.
But it must also be served by the sort of muscles, if you like, of the public transport network, the bus systems that interact with that skeleton of the mass transit, the rail based mass movement, and then the sort of rest of it, the veins or the micro transport, paratransit or popular transport, whatever term informal transport you want to look at that last mile connectivity.
Ironically, a lot of the Asian cities’ transport systems function quite well. They may not have been planned that way, but organically they’ve grown. So they’ve got the rickshaws or the multi cabs or whatever it may be, providing that lower level connectivity to the buses, to the mass, the mass transit systems. But significant investment is required in mass transit.
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